


Through the Looking-Glass

by batneko



Series: Tony is a robot [2]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Genderbending, M/M, Robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-01
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-02-06 23:56:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1877286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batneko/pseuds/batneko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ever since he got closer to Tony, Steve's had feelings he isn't sure what to do with.  And now that they're stuck in another dimension with very familiar faces, Steve might have to confront them...</p><p>A sequel to My Greatest Creation (Tony is a robot!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through the Looking-Glass

**Author's Note:**

> Pounded out in three days for SteveTonyFest on Tumblr. This is a sequel to My Greatest Creation, and one hundred percent written just for one joke.
> 
> Toni Stark is based on the canon Earth-3490 character of Natasha Stark, but the name just doesn't make sense to me, so this is ANOTHER alternate dimension with a female Tony and very few other changes.

“Cap! 12 o’clock high!”

Without a pause, Captain America tossed his shield straight up, hitting the giant insect on what passed for its chin.

“Nice one!” The bug’s head popped off, bounced, and rolled into Hawkeye’s calf.

“I want it on record that I hate you.” Although he was about twenty feet above him, Hawkeye’s voice came over Tony’s comm line without a hint of strain. He’d installed one directly into his ear, along with a dozen other things in various parts of his body. Discovering he was a machine had opened up possibilities for things he never would have considered with a meat body.

Getting to call his teammates ‘meatbags’ was just a bonus.

“I understand,” Cap replied, pure casualness.

Tony took out two more bugs, splattering the ground with goo and viscera. It wasn’t on purpose, but he couldn’t help taking a little joy in Clint’s groan.

“This is why I prefer to stay up high!” he protested.

“All the portals are up high,” Tony said, only a little smug. “And you’ve seen what happens when we get too close.”

It wasn’t pretty. Everything was being sucked toward them, even dust and debris, and there was a clattering host of bugs beyond it, only sometimes popping one out fast enough to escape the pull.

When Thor had gotten sucked in, he came out drenched from head to foot in bug blood. He insisted on remaining in the fight, but took five to wash it out of his eyes.

The good news was that the damage was minimal, this time. The portals were collected over one intersection, and life was continuing as usual beyond the road blocks.

There was a faint buzzing in Tony’s head, some kind of alert. He’d added a few dozen alerts without considering to differentiate what they were for.

“Iron Man! Another one, 1 o’clock!”

Tony raised his repulsor, expecting another bug, only to see a veritable wall of compound eyes staring at him.

“Oh, dimensional disturbance alert, not proximity.”

The odd gravity of the portals was already sucking him in. He fired up all his jets, but it only slowed it down.

“Little help?”

“On my way.” For the first time in this fight, Steve sounded worried. There was a snap to his voice and a shortness in his syllables that always gave it away. Tony had considered developing an algorithm to measure it, but he could already read Steve without one.

Tony activated his other helmet cams so he could watch Steve scale a building, leap on top of a bug, and steer it by brute force closer to the troublesome portal.

“Steve, as much as I love watching you work, that isn’t going to help.”

“If I can knock both of us out of the area of effect…”

“Steve, it’s too strong.” He was getting closer. With Steve’s enhanced strength, if he leapt off the bug he would have to hit Tony exactly right to knock him free. Of course, Steve, of all people, could pull it off.

If the bug hadn’t bucked suddenly, launching Steve early, forcing Tony to swoop and catch him, leaving both of them close enough to the portal to feel the air swooshing past.

“That bug did not want to go back through here.” Tony said, trying to sound calm. From his auxiliary cam he could see Steve adjust his mask.

“Let’s go.”

Tony shut off his jets, and let the portal take them.

 

For several long minutes it was pure chaos. There were bugs everywhere, no point in trying to keep track of what he was hitting. If it was covered in an exoskeleton, Tony shot it, and he could hear Steve doing the same.

Then they burst into open air, and it was only thanks to Tony’s internal gyroscope that they landed safely. There was too much gunk on all of his cameras to see. Without much option, he popped the helmet’s face plate open.

A few feet away, Steve was still fighting the bugs, but holding his own. The bugs didn’t even seem to care that much, they were still crowding around the portal from this end.

“What are they so scared of?” Tony asked aloud, regretting it instantly. Since he wasn’t being attacked at the moment, he looked around to take stock of the area.

And… the odd part was that it looked exactly the same as the other side.

Well, almost. “What the hell? Did that portal just take us to Manhattan?”

“Tony! Little help?”

“On it!” a female voice exclaimed over the comm. Tony and Steve exchanged a glance, but more help was never refused.

Between the two of them, the mass of bugs was quickly reduced to a handful of bugs and a pile of corpses. It wasn’t until Tony was chasing down the last couple, that their mysterious helpful voice made an appearance.

Preceded by the biggest bug corpse yet, which hit the ground with a wet crack, a woman in armor nearly identical to Tony’s landed on the pavement. It was so identical that he wouldn’t have even known she was a woman, if she didn’t immediately pop her helmet open and gawk at them.

“What the hell?”

“That’s my line,” Tony snapped. “Who are you?”

“Who are you? I have patents you know.”

“Tony?” Steve said.

“What?” both Tony and the woman replied. They stared at each other.

“12 o’clock,” Steve pointed up, and both armored heroes followed his finger.

There was a crack in the sky, and bugs pouring through. They ignored the humans and gathered around the portal, just as the last group had done.

“Oh god dammit,” the woman sighed and snapped her helmet shut again. “I don’t care what’s going on. You, shoot things.”

“Yes ma’am,” Tony said.

“Steve, come with me. I have to close that crack again.”

Steve shrugged. “Okay.”

It was too easy to be interesting, so Tony sneakily split his vision to watch the pair. The way Steve casually tossed an arm around this strange woman in Tony’s armor and let her carry him into the sky had Tony’s heart sinking in a way that really shouldn’t be possible considering his heart was made of titanium and plastic.

Once up high enough, Steve used his shield to keep bugs away long enough for the woman to activate a device that sparked blue, and the crack fizzled away.

Tony hurried to finished off the bugs before they landed, but the woman in his armor still took out two of them, leaving him silently disgruntled.

“Okay,” she said, “we usually get half an hour before the next one. Those portals are new, though. Is that where you came from?”

“Unfortunately,” Tony admitted.

“How long has it been going on your side?”

“Not even an hour. So, what, we’re thinking alternate dimension?”

“Looks like…” she trailed off. “Oh god. Are you my Steve or his Steve?”

“His Steve,” Steve mumbled, his chin dipping in the way it did when he blushed.

“Ohhh my god. I’m so sorry.” She went to cover her face with her hands, but the suit gloves were still sparking. “Whoa.”

“Where’s your Steve?” Tony asked. “Wait wait also. What’s your name?”

“Toni. Antonia Stark.”

“Are you… made of meat?”

Tony stared at him blankly. She backed up a step. “Why?”

“Um… guys?” Steve smiled and spread his hands, a pacifying gesture. “If we have an hour, you know what would be really great? A shower.”

“Yes,” Toni said immediately. “Good plan, you’re my favorite, let’s go.”

She picked up Steve without hesitation and took off, expecting Tony to follow. He gave a theatrical sigh over the comm and did.

 

Toni’s apartment was in the same spot as Tony’s, penthouse of the Avengers Tower. She’d decorated differently, but if she really was a female version of Tony, that was just because the decorator she hired chose to do it that way.

When he landed, the disarming platform opened for him, but Tony ignored it. He’d long ago adjusted his systems to push off the armor without assistance. Toni watched him in shock as metal panels opened beneath his skin and shifted, finally leaving the armor in a neat pile, ready for quick donning, if needed.

“So you’re not made of meat, is what I’m seeing.”

“I recommend it, personally,” Tony said cheerily.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” She nodded her head toward a barely-visible door in a cream-colored wall. “One of the showers is through there. Other me, want to put your armor through the wash?”

“Oh that’s a good idea, thanks.”

Without hers, Toni was curvy and braless, and it was hard not to notice, even though she looked enough like him for it to be confusing out of the corner of his eye. An arc reactor was glowing through her black tank top, a shape like an upside-down teardrop, creating an odd indent on her cleavage. Tony desperately wanted to ask about that, but he didn’t know if it would be a sensitive subject.

Once Steve left and the two Tonies were left alone, there was a lull. “Nice place?” Tony offered.

“Is yours different?”

“Not very. More chrome.”

“You can have more chrome than this?”

“Only with effort.”

Tony leaned back on one of the curvy 60’s style couches, and Toni flopped down next to him. “I wanted to do the whole thing in silver and black, but my designer said it would be too stark. I don’t think she realized what she said.”

Tony burst out laughing. “Awesome. You should have insisted.”

“I wanted to! Hey.” She bounced up, her chest bouncing several seconds longer than the rest of her. “Want to see the bedroom?”

Tony’s eyebrows shot up.

Toni rolled her eyes. “I just had it redone again. Super classy. Come on.”

“Hey, I’m down for anything.”

She laughed. “You’re definitely me. But my husband says we can only have threesomes with mechanical objects.”

Tony grinned. “I’m a mechanical object!”

Her smirk looked like the one Tony had seen on magazine covers and front pages. And mug shots. “I’ll run it by him.”

“You’re perfect and I love you.”

“You have a healthy self-esteem.”

“Master Rogers is arriving,” a feminine voice purred. It only took Tony a second to realize it had to be this Toni’s version of JARVIS.

“Thank you, FRAN,” she said, straightening her shoulders and fluffing her hair. “Is my mascara running?”

“Nope, perfect. But why do you-”

The door popped open and a Steve that looked just like Tony’s walked in, already pulling his shirt over his head. The costume was different, the hair a little longer, but he looked identical.

“Uh… hi?” He blinked at Tony and hastily re-donned his shirt. “I’m sorry, honey, who’s this?”

“Me from another dimension!” Toni said brightly. “He’s a robot!”

“Oh… kay. Um.”

“Oh god,” Tony exclaimed. “You guys are married!”

“I know, right?” Toni elbowed him. “I married that.”

“I changed my mind, I want to be you.”

Toni’s Steve shook his head. “I know I missed a lot, but can I get the high points?”

“Those portals the bugs are flying through? Lead to this guy’s dimension.” Toni pointed at him. “We still don’t know where the cracks are from.”

“Right,” Tony agreed. “And it’s not just me, my dimension’s Steve is here.”

“Is… your dimension’s Steve a woman?”

“Nope. All man.” Tony paused. “And… still in the shower.”

“Oh no,” Toni’s eyes widened.

“Is that a problem?” her Steve asked.

“Honey think about it. How long does it take you to shower?”

“I don’t know, three minutes?”

“He’s been in there ten.”

They exchanged a complicated three-way glance.

 

The water was still running, but the sound was off. Steve kicked the door open, the picture of manliness, and nearly stumbled through the hole where the bathroom had been.

“My wall!” Toni exclaimed.

“Steve!” Tony exclaimed.

“Little help?” Steve was dangling from pipework, being lightly drizzled on by what was left of two shower nozzles.

It probably didn’t need all three of them to help Steve back to solid ground, but the bugs hovering around kept darting in as if to survey the situation. Steve was, unfortunately, fully dressed, but his hair was damp and he smelled like girly shampoo.

“Sitrep?” Toni’s Steve asked.

“The big ones, queens I assume, can spit acid.”

“A bug acided my wall?” Toni cried in dismay.

“Part of it. The rest just collapsed.”

“I told you soundproofing was a needless expense,” her Steve muttered. “Suit?”

“Yes dear.”

With four of them, the fight was quick. Tony and Toni fell into easy synchronization, and the two Steves worked together with military precision. The queen bugs were a good four times the size of the smaller ones, but the Tonies took her down over the water.

“Minimal property damage.” Toni surveyed the scene. “If that doesn’t sink, boat traffic will have to be diverted.”

“Where’s everyone else in this, anyway?” Tony asked. “The rest of the Avengers?”

“Spread out. The cracks are everywhere. I can close them when they show up, but we’ve hardly had a break.” She sighed. “I can’t pinpoint the origin, I can’t get half a second to do calculations.”

Though she couldn’t see it, Tony grinned. “That’s the bonus to having a computer brain. I only need a sixth of a second.”

***

“So…”

“So.” Steve’s mirror image said back to him. After a day fighting alongside him, it was still strange every time Steve looked into that face.

“Does uh… does Toni lock herself in her lab often?”

“Sure, but I have access codes.” He cocked his head. “You can just ask, you know.”

Steve shook his head. “I can’t. It’s too weird. Tony- My Tony, he’s… We’re teammates.”

“You care about him.”

“Of course I do.” Steve leaned back on the designer couch. “He’s my friend, and… what gave me away?”

His double laughed. “I’ve just been where you are. Tony Starks aren’t hard to fall for.”

“I don’t know what to say. Or even if I should. Tony’s… I’ve only ever known him to date women.”

“Have you ever dated a man?”

“Well no, but I haven’t dated… much of anyone.” Steve shook his head again. “It’s hard. Tony just found out last year that he was… mechanical. He hasn’t dated since. And I’m worried he’ll take it the wrong way.”

“There’s a wrong way to take it?” The other Steve patted his shoulder. “You and I, I assume we’ve had similar lives.”

“I think so.”

“So I understand. You’re afraid to ruin the friendship, ruin the team. But Toni’s not like that. She… well, she dated several other Avengers before me. Casually, and not. You don’t think your Tony dated coworkers?”

“I know he has,” Steve admitted. “It’s not him I’m worried about. If he rejects me… I don’t know if I can handle being around him.”

The other Steve shrugged. “It’s up to you, then.”

***

It took three days, even with two Tony Starks (and okay, one Reed Richards) working on it. The point of origin was found in Albany, wiped it out with two car batteries and three of Toni’s old computers.

And that was it. Both Tonies complained about the anit-climax, but the problem was solved and both cracks and portals were closed.

Mostly.

“I can hold it open indefinitely,” Toni said. “But once it’s closed… it’s closed.”

“What she means is, last chance for a threesome.” Tony waggled his eyebrows, and both Steves glared at him. “Fine, fair enough.”

The team, familiar and strange, waved them off. They’d barely had time to get to know the alternate versions of the Avengers (and assorted others), and now they would never see them again.

“Goodbye, you’re beautiful, goodbye!” Tony called, waving dramatically.

“Thank you all for your hospitality,” Steve added.

The portal behind them shimmered and shifted in the air. Unlike the other side, which sucked people in, this one pushed away. Tony wrapped his arm around Steve’s waist, cranked up his engines, and shot them through.

They popped like a cork into their own world. Behind them, the portal shuddered and faded into thin air, like it had never been.

“Home?” Tony suggested.

“Everyone will be worried about us,” Steve said, nodding.

“You mind if I just carry you? It’ll be faster.”

Steve only smiled because he knew Tony couldn’t see it. “I don’t mind.”

***

Everyone had indeed been worried. To the point where it was the next day before Tony’s phone stopped ringing off the metaphorical hook. Of course, a lot of that was stockholders, but they shouldn’t have invested in Starktech if they didn’t expect their spokesboy to go missing for days at a time.

It was three AM when Tony wandered down to Steve’s favorite workout room. He was lying on the butterfly machine, staring at the ceiling, one earbud in. Faintly, Tony could hear what sounded like an audiobook instead of music.

“Can’t sleep?” He asked. Steve didn’t start, he’d have heard Tony coming a floor away, but he pulled out the earbud and sat up.

“I slept. Did you?”

“Nah.”

“Your body still needs rest.”

“I’m running diagnostics, JARVIS will alert me if anything overheats. Hey.”

“What?” Steve smiled.

“That uh… other us.”

“What about them? They were pretty put-together, I thought.”

“Yeah. Exactly. And married.”

Steve’s brow creased. “Yes?”

“Just, you know. A thing. To think about.”

“You didn’t really want a threesome, did you?” The crease deepend.

“Steve, being sandwiched between you and a version of me with amazing tits is pretty much my go-to fantasy.”

Steve’s cheeks went bright pink. “Very… funny.”

“Not joking.” Tony poked the MP3 player with his toe. “Scoot over. Let’s talk. Serious talk.”

Steve did, the two of them barely fitting on the short padded seat of the machine. “You want to serious talk?”

“I haven’t slept in four days, and Iron Woman looked so happy, and… And… I’m that happy, when I’m with you.”

Steve’s cheeks upgraded to red. “You are?”

“But I don’t think you are. When you look at me sometimes… it’s like you want to cry.”

“That’s just how my face is.”

“Well that too, but come on, Steve!” Tony’s face was frighteningly close. He smelled like coffee and motor oil. “I’m happy with you. But I think I could make you happier than you are. Is that a thing you would be interested in?”

Steve blinked, trying not to stare at Tony’s mouth. “Is this a really weird aggressive way of asking me to go steady with you?”

“You’re adorable. And yes. Yes it is.”

Tony needed a shave, and probably mouthwash, and his lips were starting to chap. But he was too close, and after an opening like that, the showman in Steve couldn’t resist.

He kissed him.

“So, dinner?” Tony said, panting a little after he pulled away. 

“I’d rather order in,” Steve grinned.

“Okay but I might fall asleep on you.”

“That’s perfectly okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> The one joke was "I'm a mechanical object!"


End file.
